Steam ending support for Windows XP SP1

Digital games services haven’t really been around long enough to have to deal with the phasing out of older operating systems. However, Steam looks to be one of the first to start limiting the support it offers to users still relying on decade-old versions of Windows.

Valve has decided to stop supporting Steam running on Windows XP with Service Pack 1 (SP1) after August 31. A decision the company says will only impact 1% of its 40 million Steam users.

The good news is, it’s a simple case of applying a free Microsoft update to SP2 in order to continue getting Steam support and updates for your machine. And when SP2 stops being supported, there’s always SP3 to install, so you’re covered for a while yet.

Inevitably Windows XP support will stop completely eventually, but the way in which Steam functions means it shouldn’t really impact your ability to play the games you already own. If you have a working version of Steam on an old machine now, it isn’t going to suddenly stop working for your existing games. If you want to keep that machine for playing games, you can always install Steam on another, more modern OS and access the same games when your old hardware eventually stops working.

In fact, you’ll probably face the issue of not being able to play new games long before Steam support ends for your OS. Remember, Microsoft didn’t implement support for more recent versions of DirectX on Windows XP, so if you want to play a game that uses DirectX 11 for example, you’re going to have to upgrade anyway.

Valve’s Steam team isn’t going to get any less busy in the near future even if older operating system versions are losing support. Steam for Mac has been up and running for a couple of years now, and it looks likely to be joined by Steam for Linux before 2012 is over.